A Salem bridge was suddenly closed Friday morning over concerns about deterioration.

Salem officials said the Teague Drive Bridge is not safe for cars. It's one of five bridges the town planned to replace within the next three years.

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Area residents said the bridge was reduced to a single lane of traffic for the past two years, but recent safety concerns caused the town to shut it down abruptly.

"Our engineer went out to look at it earlier this week and saw that there was a sink hole in the side of the bridge people were still traveling on," said Town Manager Keith Hickey.

After consulting with the state Department of Transportation, Salem officials shut down the bridge. They said there's no telling when drivers will be able to make the trip again.

"The bridge can't be repaired," Hickey said. "The pipe underneath it is a corrugated metal pipe. It's got a life expectancy of 30 years. It's been 30 years since it's been in there."

Hickey said he plans to ask the Board of Selectmen on Monday for money to design a new bridge and then ask voters in March to approve spending more than $800,000 to replace it. The Teague Bridge was not on the state's red list of most at-risk bridges.

Hickey said he's confident residents will fund the bridge replacement, saying the town has historically been supportive of such projects. Nine bridges have been replaced in Salem in the past seven years.

Four bridges in Salem are red-listed, and two are set to be replaced this year. Work has already started on Bluff Street, and work on the Providence Hill Bridge will start in the coming weeks.

Provided funding goes through, a third bridge will be replaced in 2014, along with the one on Teague Drive, which originally was set for replacement in 2015.

Until the bridge is replaced, drivers will have to take a detour, traveling further south before they can go north.

"There's no public safety issue as far as emergency response vehicles, but we just could not take the chance of having the bridge collapse with people on that bridge," Hickey said. "We thought it was best to shut it down."